From the Vault
During the three-and-a-half-years-oh-dear-god-why-this-never-ends cycle of developing In Extremis, I’ve acquired the habit of saving anything visually interesting for further reference down the line. This started back in 2013, when the overall ideas for each stage aesthetic choices were still being sketched; during those days, me and my project supervisor made a short internet experiment where people would go in a website and associate keywords with images and music. A ton of interesting visuals were chosen for this activity, and some mood boards were assembled to set the tone of the stages (you can check them here, even though in the end of the day they were not that useful for the project).
Those boards were not nearly enough to clear a vision, as in the years that follow those visuals shifted toward several directions, and my collection of links only grew. So, since development is finally reaching its final leg (yes!), I though about sharing some of that cooler stuff around here:
Invader Fractal
http://www.levitated.net/daily/levInvaderFractal.html
The invader fractal, a nifty code that generate ersatz space invaders (with your brain gestalt process doing the rest of the work), is the basis of the visual for the enemies in INX first stage (which is, in itself, is also sort of procedurally generated too). It’s a fun visual trick, tho one that I had to reverse engineer to fit in my engine. Another game that uses this method is the great freeware arcade Invaders:Corruption.
Movies In Color
http://moviesincolor.com/
Nice tumblr about making palletes out of movie stills. A good exercise to sharpen your eye over color composition (something that I had zero knowledge when I started – and now I must have around 0.3%, though).
Corruption as Art
http://corruptionasart.tumblr.com/
A recent addition to my files; a tumblr about some aesthetic pleasing glitching experiments.
An Optical Poem
Arguably one of the first purely abstract animated films ever done, this is an abstract composition about geometric forms in synch with music. Quite an influence for stage 2A (aside from Saul Bass openings).
Star Rider
3D animation from a forgotten arcade game from 1983; some authentic, trippy retrofuturism there.
After You’ve Gone
An old-school Disney animation from their Make Mine Music series. Huge influence in Stage 2C (whose main theme is the synchronization between music and action), watched this short countless times to get the mood right for that stage. I sadly lacks the lovely animation this short has.
Love & Theft
Psychedelic morphing animation. Good stuff.
Eros Ex Mathematica
http://www.scribbletronics.com/image/eros-ex-mathematica/
Algorithmically-generated sexually-suggestive digital art. The most fascinating thing about this project is how simple visual expressions of mathematical processes can generate lurid, provocative images, thanks to our own visual baggage of what constitutes something sexual.
Desert Chrome
http://desertchrome.tumblr.com/
Totally radical tumblr that will most likely fill all your shiny chrome needs.
Brian Donnely
http://www.briandonnelly.org/
Fascinating and evocative watercolor works, a point of reference for several of the freelance art commissioned for the game.
Typeset in The Future – 2001
https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/01/31/2001-a-space-odyssey/
Kubrick’s 2001 is a giant point of reference for INX, and its elegant typeset is one of the characteristics I blatant stole borrowed from that film. This article goes in deep in analysing the reasoning behind the typography in the movie.
Twenty-Five Terrifyingly Awesome And Horrifyingly Awful VHS Horror Covers
http://comicsalliance.com/twenty-five-terrifyingly-awesome-and-horrifyingly-awful-vhs-horror-covers/
I always had a weird obsession with old horror movie covers; perhaps I spent so much time as a kid staring in awe at the horror section of my local video rental store that those corny yet menacing image acquired some sort of totemic resonance in my headspace. either way, the aesthetic of the trashy horror movie is a strong presence in INX Stage 4B, which is themed around fear.
Movie Posters From Poland
http://wellmedicated.com/50-incredible-film-posters-from-poland/
Still on the topic of movie posters, here are some interesting results from when one culture is filtered through the cultural lenses of another. Due to the restriction of American publicity in communist Poland, adaptations had to be made, sometimes deviating entirely from the mood of the original films; but with fascinating results.
Movie Posters From Ghana
http://twistedsifter.com/2011/09/30-hilarious-bootleg-movie-posters-from-ghana/
And here is perhaps an even more extreme example of the process mentioned above. This posters, some probably made with minimum amount of knowledge of the source material, are equal parts gruesome and nonsensical, but also oddly beautiful, and in many cases, much better than the movie they are selling.
Enter the Void Opening
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/enter-the-void/
The aggressive, sensory-overloading opening for Gaspar Noé “Enter the Void” was where I had my a-ha moment for the Greenlight trailer; as before I struggled to find an effective way to communicate the aesthetic dissonance and mild insanity of INX without spoiling its secrets.
TO UNDERSTAND IS TO PERCEIVE PATTERNS
YES
Professor Soap – Saltwater Sundays
Have no idea why I added this to my references; but is such a nice video and such a chill song I would be remiss to not include it.
In Extremis 